@Trent Roberts I like to park near my potential investment in the shadows late on maybe a Friday night with the windows rolled down engine off, car silet and dark.

But software doesn't unplug potties, help people find the cabin after dark, or fetch snakes from the dryer vent.  

If the pricing for an area seems too good to be true, it's probably dark blue on the Trulia crime heat map.

Chris,It's a long story :)But here's part 1: I lost everything back in 2002-2003https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/690349-from-bankruptcy-to-1-000-units-part-1-thru-the-dark-tunnelFrom there, is a link to Part 2: how I came back and Part 3: how I built my real estate empire

@Jon Holdman That's a good point about the ownership split however I have been studying syndication a lot and know that there are many syndicated deal structures out there where the sponsor puts $0 of his own money in but still gets a decent slice of the ownership (i.e. 25%) I know this comes down to experience as well but I know without a shadow of a doubt that these deals exist and are pretty comon.I mean the idea is that without the sponsor of the syndicate, there would be no deal anyway so IMO they deserve a much bigger slice of ownership than the amount of capital (if any) that they put in.I don't doubt such investments exist.

Welcome to the dark side of money awesomeness!

My assumptions are really just shots in the dark because I haven't seen the property in person and there are no interior photos of the house. 

I guess I just felt in the dark about my role with the title company, home appraisal, and so on.

Also, mentioned how you could see shadow properties, flips profits from other investors (who knows if this is real info), vacant prop's, pre-foreclosures, and prop's with low mortgage balances.   

I would like to meet some like minded people or even people that are currently investing who I could shadow for a bit and learn some of the key thing to getting started.